I sometimes wonder how many nonprofit leaders realize they are serving two distinct but related missions?

First, of course, is the mission of service particular to your institution or organization. You may have an education mission, a healthcare mission, a nutrition mission, a faith-filled mission, a mission to assist the homeless, etc. Most nonprofit leaders understand this mission and can, on demand, speak to why this mission should matter to donors and how they can be supportive of this mission. Easy enough.

But, there is a distinctively separate mission – related to the service mission, but different – that nonprofit leaders assume as well. This second mission is related to the nonprofit status of your institution. As a 501 (c) 3 organization (or similar-chartered organization), the US Internal Revenue Service provides you with a federal tax exemption. Additionally, because your institution is considered as offering a “public good,” you are considered a “charity” or “charitable organization.” Therefore, you have a mission to encourage and promote volunteerism and charitable giving and to provide opportunities for people to respond to your service mission with generosity.

Your work as a nonprofit leader necessarily includes extolling the virtues of charitable gift giving. It is one way nonprofits are distinct corporations from for-profit ones. Charitable support is a key component of the very structure and operational realities of your institution. The federal government has provided your tax-exempt status and, further encourages you to engage other citizens in financially supporting your cause through various charitable giving deductions for donors within the tax code. So, anchored deep within the very DNA of your institution is the mission to encourage charitable giving from your various publics.

But, as I think about how nonprofit leaders communicate their mission, I rarely hear this message of giving emerge. I hear and see communications about how the services provided by the nonprofit are needed – even essential – for a just, caring, fair, healthy, and educated world. However, I don’t hear much about the “giving is good” mission and how it evinces empathy, compassion, and understanding – traits that are far too uncommon in our world today. Sometimes, I don’t even sense a leadership disposition to encourage generosity among as many as possible.

Make no mistake, though, your mission of promoting generosity is every bit as important as your service mission. In fact, it may just be that it is this mission – this mission of encouraging a more generous and giving world – that will do the most good and will end up also funding your service mission.

How do you respond when someone asks about your profession – what you do for a living? While it can be tempting to offer a knee-jerk and readily-understood response such as, “I’m a fundraiser,” please don’t.

Ever again.

For the sake of our authentically-transforming work, just don’t.

Fundraising is the transactional, point-in-time act of donating. Think of the Salvation Army’s red kettles outside of shopping centers before Christmas. Think of crowd-funding competitions at college football games. Think of point-of-sale donation drives at department stores.

Such fundraising strategies are not bad or unhelpful. And, being employed to plan and implement such strategies is not ignoble work. To be certain, transactional fundraising can raise significant sums of money!

But, that is exactly the point of why you should never refer to yourself as a “fundraiser.”

When you do this work well, it’s never about the money. Significant giving almost always follows time — and it always follows values and beliefs. Therefore, far from focusing on money, we should be focused on creating consequential donor engagement opportunities. Our work’s focus should be on inviting donors to better understand the need, to meet those our institution serves (if at all possible), and to vividly animate the overlap between our donor’s values and beliefs and the needs met by our institutions.

At its core, our work is about transformations, not transactions. Through engagement we invite others to join a meaningful cause. Through their acceptance of our invitation, the institutions we serve, the people our institutions serve, and the donors themselves, all are transformed.

Some years ago, I suggested that all development and advancement professionals should refer to themselves as “stewards.” Stewardship brings with an understanding of serving, protecting, and extending something good and bigger than yourself. I think that insight has worn well over time and today, I would certainly prefer that title over “fundraiser.” Having said that, there certainly are other more-apt descriptors to replace the ubiquitous “fundraiser” title.

You are engaged in an honorable, compassionate, encouraging, and virtuous profession. You do big things, even when working on modest scales. You build. You lift up. You bring good news and aspirations. You help nurture and grow programs that help others. In the end, you help transform individuals, communities, and the world by inviting others to express the most generous side of the human spirit.

Over the last few years, I’ve taken to explaining the purpose of donor and prospect management as the “management of exceptions.” By that phrase, I simply mean that all major donors and major donor prospects are “exceptions” to any conceivable universal rule one might use to engage them as a group. Each of these identified best prospects is unique. The relationship each has with your institution is unique. Their history, personality, life events, perspectives, values, beliefs – all different and unique to each of them.

Prospect management, then, simply helps us bring some semblance of structure to the scale and messiness of all of these exceptions. There is no “rule,” no “formula,” which will adequately assist the development officer with the personalized engagement of each of these prospects and donors. It is driven, at least in part, by the uniqueness of the donor herself.

The reason I have taken to referring to prospect management as the “management of exceptions,” is to remind us all that there simply is not a magic, singular rule, strategy, or tactic, which, when implemented, will open wallets wide. Although perhaps appealing in its simplicity, we should resist any temptation to seek or adopt any approach that purports to effectively engage donors and prospects using a template, a formula, or a pitch.

Here is the reality: There is no such formula, rule, strategy, tactic, or pitch. There is no single word choice, no special activity, which, when applied consistently, will helpfully engage all – or even a substantial number – of major donors and major donor prospects.

However, it can become confusing when one reads or listens to so many so-called development “experts” who, with great conviction, describe how certain strategies or pitches will work with women donors, or men donors, or business owners, or artists, or. . . well, you name it. As if development and advancement work were so easy.

Our work, when done authentically, honorably, and effectively, isn’t to come up with the perfect pitch to sell donors based on their demographics or characteristics. Instead, it’s to captivate each prospect as a full and complex human being and discover with each the bridges that connect their unique values, interests, and beliefs to your institution’s mission and vision. When you consistently engage individuals as “exceptions” through planful prospect and donor management techniques, you will realize far more success than any single, canned cultivation strategy can provide.

In a world seemingly plagued by insecurity, brittleness, volatility, anger, negativity, and senselessness, being involved as a professional in the arena of gift-giving and philanthropy is something for which you should be grateful. Each day you work in advancement, you are affirming the remarkable goodness of humanity through generosity. Consider what we know from research:

Giving is contagious. Even by-standers who watch givers in action, reap many of the physical and psychological benefits listed above.

So, as we begin 2018, I hope you keep close the foundational virtues of our work. Yes, you have specific goals that need to be exceeded this year. Facilities will need building, programs will need funding, endowments will need to grow, and budgets will need to be met.

But never lose sight of the bigger, more compelling reality: You are involved in a honorable, particularly human work. A work that brings us all a full step closer to the very best versions of ourselves. A work that encourages us to deepen our faith and care for each other, despite all of the nay-saying and negativity. A work that blesses both the giver and recipient. And I, for one, am honored to be toiling alongside of each of you in that vineyard.

Regardless of your circumstances, position, and station today, 2018 is a blank canvas waiting for you to create your picture. I hope each of us will use colors from the palettes of kindness, patience, inspiration, encouragement, and belief as we paint. Because when we encourage others to reach for their far edge of promise, we, in fact, become the best version of ourselves.

We all recognize the “law of supply and demand,” as a basic economic construct in free markets which states that ultimately, the price of a good or service will be determined by the supply of and customer demand for that good or service. But I believe there is a development program version of “the law of supply and demand” as well.

It’s quite simple.

Either you are “supplying” your donors and prospective donors with proactive, consistent, well-planned, inspirational messages about how you are meeting important needs today, will meet more needs tomorrow, and how, specifically, they can (and should!) give through you to help meet those needs, or. . .

Or, you are you regularly are responding to the “demands” of your donors. What does a donor-demand environment look like? Well you probably are receiving gifts more than inviting donors to give them, which means they may not be gifts that your institution actually wants/needs. You probably are communicating gratitude for a single gift 3 times more often than you are inviting specific gifts. And you probably are accepting gifts with so many strings that it causes problems within your institution.

If you aren’t strategically “supplying” your donors with the plans, the whys, and the hows of their giving – in other words if you aren’t educating them, guiding them, and encouraging their best giving in ways that most benefit your mission, you are most likely operating in a donor “demand” culture.

Receiving more gifts for the purposes that your institution truly needs to best meet the needs of those you serve doesn’t just happen. It happens because we consistently “supply” our donors with the education and inspiration to respond most helpfully. Over time, the more we proactively focus on our “supply,” the less we will have to react to “demands.”

It is well known that, given the choice, younger people will opt to meet new people and participate in new experiences as opposed to spending time with a sibling or other family members. Conversely, older folks tend to prefer spending time with those closest to them – family, long-held friends, etc. – as opposed to expanding their circle of friends or seeking new adventures. A macro-level task of youth, it would appear, is to expand boundaries, friend networks, and experiences. Meanwhile, the task of old age, it seems, is to embrace those family, friends, and patterns of behavior most comforting to us.

But why does this shift in mindset from expansion to contraction happen as we age? Stanford Center on Longevity Director, Laura Carstensen, has a theory. Over the last 20 years she has researched this psychological phenomenon extensively. And, here is what she has found: It is not necessarily age that causes us to become more focused on and desire to spend more time with the ones closest to us – the ones we love. Instead, it is our perspective – our individual sense of how much time we have left in this world. Regardless of age, it appears, when we are confronted with the limits of our own lifespan, we tend to home in on what is most important – our deep and abiding relationships with family and friends and the activities that bring us most meaning, joy, and comfort.

Tucked away in Professor Carstensen’s research on longevity is a gem of insight for development professionals. Simply put, the more we can remind people about the value of a life well-lived, about what brings meaning to their lives, and about what matters most to them, the more open they will be to considering supporting causes bigger than themselves. This is not to say, of course, that we should engage our donors in depressing and morbid discussions about the brevity of human life!

However, Professor Carstensen’s work should serve to remind us that our individual and unique perspectives on life and longevity impact our decision-making and behavior in profound ways. Perhaps our role as development professionals should be far less about asking people to support our cause and far more about inviting people to consider what lasting impact they want for their lives. Instead of asking questions to glean more about their financial capacity, it may be that encouraging conversations about what is deeply meaningful and gives purpose to their lives will more effectively trigger their generosity.

We often ask our donors questions about why they chose to support our institutions and organizations in the first place. Or, what they think about our proposed new program or facility expansion. And these are fine questions. But, first and foremost, they are questions about us, our institutions, and, our plans. If we would consistently turn the questions around and ask about them, as whole and complex individuals, we would pour the relational concrete for a strong gift-giving foundation. Questions like: “As you think back on your accomplishments, to what or to whom do you attribute your greatest successes?” Or, “Tell me about the most meaningful gift you’ve ever made.”

Not only will such an approach provide us with rich, deeply-personal information about our donors, it also gets them thinking about what and who is truly important to them and how giving is good. This approach also does something else that is powerful: It clearly communicates the message that, “your perspective matters to me. What is meaningful to you, is important to me.” And that message is what enhances trust between human beings.

It’s not a bad thing to be reminded that each of us has precious little time on this earth and that we should focus more on meaning and what matters most – people, experiences, and how our lives can leave a lasting, positive impact. In fact, encouraging others to reflect on this fact just may be critical to inspiring their generosity.

This week the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed the much-discussed tax cut and reform bill, which focuses, primarily, on reducing corporate tax rates and re-organizing the individual tax code. In the charitable giving sector, non-profit leaders have expressed concerns that the greatly-increased standard tax deduction levels included in the bill – from $12,700 for married couples in 2017 to $24,000 in 2018 – will reduce the percentage of individual tax-payers who itemize deductions. In 2017, approximately 33% of tax-payers will forego the standard deduction and itemize, while estimates suggest that only 13% will behave similarly in 2018.

The reason this substantive decline in itemizing tax deductions concerns non-profit leaders is due to a belief that fewer itemizers will equate to fewer donors and dollars given away to 501 (c) 3 organizations. Put into question form, the clear concern is simple: If more individuals are not going to receive a tax “credit” for their gift, will they still be motivated to give?

It’s a fair and important question, to be sure. And while most analyses suggest that charitable giving will be negatively impacted by the changes incorporated within the new tax bill, I don’t believe this is the most concerning outcome of the tax bill even if it comes to pass. In fact, even if charitable giving should decrease by $10 billion or $20 billion as some analyses suggest, I still don’t believe this short-term result is the most concerning development related to this tax bill.

My deeper concern stems from a broader observation about policy and civil discourse today in our society. The tax cut and reform bill only evinces my unease, it is not the cause of it.

We live in a political and social context today in which there is no serious discussion about the role of philanthropy, the importance of giving personally, in support of the common good. Instead, we have treated all questions related to what makes a healthy, cohesive society as a binary choice: either the answer is government intervention or the answer is free-market capitalism. And while both of these institutions are critical to a high-functioning, free, and healthy society, they, alone, are not the full answer.

The U.S. has long been the world’s leader in generosity. On average over the last 50 years, Americans have given away approximately 2% of disposable income annually. No other country comes even close to that record of generous support. Historically, Americans have acted so generously in support of the least among us and in support of other communal concerns because of a broadly accepted ethos – that giving is good. That it is better to give than to receive. That being generous is a healthy, valuable, and esteemed trait in humans.

But this “generosity ethos,” is being questioned now more than ever during my lifetime. Politicians are questioning the appropriateness of gifts in support of educational institutions (and, now, through this tax bill, beginning to tax some college and university endowments). Additionally, in my consulting experiences, I’ve witnessed a rise in governing board members and other influential supporters pushing and jawboning non-profit leaders to seek “efficiency,” and “profit-making,” as if they were leading for-profit enterprises. In some settings, the non-profit mission itself is being called into question.

Quietly, I do not believe giving totals will be injured in 2018 because of this tax bill. I believe the analyses of this tax bill suggesting a negative impact over the short-term in charitable giving are wrong. Charitable giving, broadly-speaking, tracks very closely to market returns. So, if the financial markets continue to do well, charitable giving will probably fair well in 2018, and perhaps, for the next few years. Longer-term, though, I do have concerns. When the important role of personal giving is de-emphasized in our tax policy, we are heading down a pathway that leads not only to fewer Americans making charitable gifts, but more importantly, fewer Americans believing that they should.

This broader and longer-term loss of focus of what, truly, has made America great will be the impact of this tax bill that is most concerning to me. It’s not just our democratic government, and its not just our version of capitalism that has made the U.S. special. It is also our historically-agreed-upon “generosity ethos.” What has made and will continue to make America unique is an emphasis on helping each other, supporting those who have less than us, and, through our private giving, showing deep care for the common good.

This “generosity ethos,” though, isn’t a birthright. It must be nurtured and consistently reinforced. It must be taught throughout childhood. It must be modeled in communities. It must be celebrated by honoring generous individuals. And, yes, it must be affirmed in our fiscal and tax policies. When we consistently reinforce the “generosity ethos” in our families, our churches, our schools, our communities, and our political policies, we all benefit. Not only do those who need the care, support, and encouragement get assistance, but the givers are transformed too. It truly is better (and healthier) to be a giver than a taker.

Additionally, we end up being the envy of the world because we do not simply rely on either government or business to solve all our problems, to care for those who might fall through the cracks, or to enhance the communal experience for all. We have this third sector, this non-profit sector. This other beautiful, vibrant, robust, personal, and caring component of society which is supported in patchwork fashion by millions of generous people who are compelled to respond to needs larger than their own. The non-profit structure which encourages the expression of the impulse to help each other is as much a part of the American success story as is any political or business-related accomplishments.

So while many are focused on the short-term impacts of the tax bill on charitable giving totals, I’m not. What concerns me is not hearing any political, business, or other social leaders consistently and fervently raising the issue that we are in a longer-term trend of minimizing the role and importance of private giving to the health and well-being of our society. Over time, when fewer and fewer of us are encouraged to give in support of each other, we all lose. And not just financially. We lose what has made our society the envy of the world. We lose our capacity to relate to our common humanity.

This tax bill is not our primary problem, it’s just another expression of it.

As an advancement professional, you see the hackneyed phrase, “best practices” a ton. Professional development opportunities tout the teaching of “best practices” for this advancement function or that one. Members of your team may spend time benchmarking other shops to identify, “best practices.” Perhaps even you have sought or are seeking the silver-bulleted “best practices” as a way to immediately enhance your advancement results. Truly, it is a ubiquitous phrase in our profession.

But what if authentic, sustained advancement improvements and results come not from copying “best practices,” but instead emerge from how we think about our advancement work?

The problem with “best practices,” of course, is that what works for the university on the other side of town may not work as well for you. Or, activities which improved results at another organization could actually be detrimental to your advancement results. Every institution – each organization – is unique. Each has its own history, giving culture, greater and lesser strengths, leadership capabilities (and shortcomings), and donor interests. Each institution has its own opportunities as well as its own threats. So, as a profession, we probably should be critically questioning how beneficial the seeking of “best practices” really is for the progress of our individual advancement programs.

I’m not totally against “best practices,” mind you. Understanding the general idea of advancement “best practices,” can be helpful. As an example, learning what works for envelope teaser language in order to get the envelope opened is helpful. It’s just not what is most helpful.

I’m concerned that our profession touts “best practices” as some sort of “progress panacea.” “Do these 8 things,” the “best practice” elixir suggests, “and your online giving portal will produce more gifts.” “Best practices” provide guidance to our work around the edges of effectiveness. They do not represent the building blocks of longer-term success and enhanced advancement results.

Regularly, my encouragement to advancement professionals is to spend less time seeking “best practices” and far more time reflecting on “best thinking.” If you want to create environments in which donors give generously and consistently, here are 3 “best thoughts” to commit to memory and work by:

Being Generous is Good . . . for the Giver – When you really buy-in to the notion that giving is good for the giver, you will give strenuous scrutiny to gimmicks, give-aways, and other transactional maneuvers designed to raise money. You will put far more energy into creating compelling reasons and ways to invite donors into the wonderfully meaningful experience that comes with acting altruistically and generously. You will focus on your mission and why it should matter to more people in the world. And, you will bring a passion to your work that performance metrics and goals, alone, will never animate. Simply by looking at the strategies and tactics of some advancement programs, one would wonder what the leaders of those programs really believe about giving and generosity. I can assure you that the best, most effective advancement programs are led by people who fully embrace the truth that giving is good.

All Giving is Personal – Recently I co-presented at the Association of Healthcare Philanthropy International Conference with a dear friend, Tim Self, Executive Director of AnMed Health Foundation. As we were preparing for our presentation, Tim reminded me that years ago, I invited him to make his first “major” gift – an annual gift of $1,000. “Jason,” he said, “I’ll never forget the satisfaction I had in making that commitment and then bringing that gift to your office.” Here’s the rest of that story: I consider Tim a good and dear friend. And I have absolutely no recollection of inviting him to make that gift nor of his fulfilling it! To Tim that gift was beyond a “major” gift – it was meaningful – and that is all that really matters. The best, most effective advancement programs are led by people who fully embrace the notion of viewing all that you do through the eyes, ears, and perspectives of the prospective donor.

Educating Donors is Your Primary Role – Yes, you are supposed to use the art of inquiry to learn about prospective donors. Yes, you are supposed to listen actively to discern their interests and values. And, yes, are supposed to invite donors to give. But, eclipsing all of those activities should be a realization that you are an educator first. Educating donors on the need, on why they should care, on how they should make their gift, even on what amount they should consider giving. Too many in our profession fail to recognize their appropriate role in shaping gifts through donor education and, instead, are content to receive whatever gifts emerge from donor interactions. The best, most effective advancement programs are led by people who fully embrace the role of being a donor educator. And like all good educators, they lead. They encourage. They correct bad thinking. They challenge. And they do it with a deftness that inspires.

Cultivating habits of good thought in order to drive better practices should be our goal. When we embrace “best thinking” like the 3 examples above, we put ourselves and our advancement programs in the best possible position for long-term success and positive results. In the end, it will not be the employment of random “best practices” which will secure our success. It will be the employment of practices that are driven relentlessly by a habit of “best thinking.”

“It depends,” is a well-established, go-to answer for consultants, but that doesn’t mean it is an altogether unhelpful response. From leadership, to donor engagement, to giving history at the institution, successful campaigns do, in fact, “depend,” on numerous important variables.

One variable, though not often discussed, is exceptionally predictive of campaign success. It is what our firm calls the “believability factor.” This factor is important because it impacts the donor at the very beginning of the campaign process and discussion. It sets the stage for all future conversations and it colors all information, education, and engagement activities that occur through the cultivation and solicitation process. To understand the power of the “believability factor,” it is helpful to understand what, exactly, it is and how it works.

Campaign “believability” can be defined in two ways.

First, a campaign is seen as being “believable” if major donors, in general, perceive the proposed campaign dollar goal as achievable. The dollar goal may be viewed as a stretch for the institution, but, major donors must be willing to state that the stretch can be reached. If you were to ask major donors whether or not they believe a proposed campaign dollar goal is achievable, and you asked them to rate their confidence on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being “high confidence in achieving the dollar goal”), you would want to see the scores around the 4-7 range. You certainly don’t want ratings of 1-3 as that would suggest they believe the campaign dollar goal to be a fantasy number. Conversely, you wouldn’t want to see scores in the 8-10 range as that would suggest that these major donors believe the campaign dollar goal is too low. When a campaign’s dollar goal is not “believable” – especially when it is viewed as being far too high – the institution runs the risk of turning off major donors from the start. Who would make a decision to give their best gift in support of a campaign they believed to be headed for failure?

The second way a campaign’s “believability” is understood by major donors is based on the campaign initiatives that are being presented. Are these initiatives viewed as being achievable by the institution should the money be raised? Is the leadership in place to deliver? Is the infrastructure present to support the initiative? Is the initiative viewed as a pipe-dream or as a logical next step for the institution based on its strengths and its strategic plan? If major donors perceive the institution to be “dreaming” recklessly, they will, again, be discouraged from making their best gifts.

Recently, I was with a higher education client in the process of preparing for a campaign. The president is a visionary with bold aspirations. He is an advancement leader’s dream but he can also be viewed as being a bit too ambitious with major donors expressing some measure of skepticism at his plans and aspirations. His initial instinct was to propose a campaign dollar goal that was far and away larger than anything ever considered by the institution. As I shared with him the importance and power of the “believablity factor,” he responded, “So, we need our campaign dollar goal to be a number that encourages each of our major donors to see how their stretch gift can help us achieve that goal.”

“Exactly!” I said, “your major donors know they are at the top of your giving pyramid. So, if they can’t imagine how their gift helps you significantly reach your proposed dollar goal, they won’t be inspired to give significantly.”

The aspirations we have for our institutions should always be filtered through the lens of “believability.” When we get it right, we encourage the best gifts from our best donors. But, if we get it wrong, we discourage them. And that may not be easy to reverse.